I am not sure there are numbers small enough to capture the net literary loss to Britain of Sally Rooney’s books no longer being published here. Nonetheless, it seems that the would-be criminal bestselling author is banking on the withdrawal of her books and the television based on them being a huge deal, one major enough to shift Home Office policy in favour of Jew-haters at home and abroad.
What a heavenly idea: the most politically odious, witless writer in generations being locked up till I’m almost a pensioner
Rooney, a keen supporter of Palestine Action, now a proscribed terror group in the UK since breaking into RAF Brize Norton in June and committing acts of sabotage, said after the proscription in summer that she would be giving proceeds from her books to Palestine Action. Earlier this week, she said this meant she was ‘almost certain’ to not publish new books in the UK, because she would be at risk of being accused of funding terrorism.
Personally, I was thrilled at Rooney’s declaration. Supporting or being a member of this violence-inciting bunch of losers can at present carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years. What a heavenly idea: the most politically odious, witless writer in generations being locked up till I’m almost a pensioner.
It is clear that Rooney is hoping we all sneer along with her at the idiocy of the British state in proscribing Palestine Action. It is clearly preposterous, we are to scoff, that she may be prevented from profiting from her work in the UK.
Rooney spelled out that preposterousness with characteristic relentlessness. ‘If I were to write another screenplay, television show or similar creative work, I would not be able to have it produced or distributed by a company based in England and Wales without, expressly or tacitly, accepting that I would not be paid.’
Are we to cry out at the injustice of this? She’s rich as Croesus already, and would be even richer, of course, had she not prevented any Israeli publishers from acquiring the rights to her books.
Apparently, we are. ‘If, therefore, Faber and Faber Limited are legally prohibited from paying me the royalties I am owed,’ Rooney went on, ‘my existing works may have to be withdrawn from sale and would therefore no longer be available to readers in the UK.’
If I can’t cry at the loss to readers of her prose’s charmless onslaught, then perhaps I am to feel more at what she calls ‘a truly extreme incursion by the state into the realm of artistic expression.’
Sorry, love. Artists don’t get a free pass. If I stood up and pledged to donate my next cheque to Al-Qaeda, Isis or Hezbollah, I don’t expect an exception to be made because I’m fabulous and important, two traits Rooney certainly believes apply to her.
One wonders if anyone, ever (bar the British government) has confronted her with even the tiniest disagreement with her views. Perhaps a fact or two, or a bit of history. I doubt it. I expect this will end with yet more egg on the Home Office’s face and Rooney smugly going on living in luxury, producing more objectionable stuff that everyone under 40 is required to read.
But one can dream: both of an end to the bogus, destructive politics of Palestinianism, and a break from Rooney’s artless writings.
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